• Journal of the Korean Society for Nondestructive Testing
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• v.34 no.3
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• pp.254-259
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• 2014

A pressurized heavy water reactor (PHWR) core has 380 fuel channels contained and supported by a horizontal cylindrical vessel known as the calandria, whereas a pressurized water reactor (PWR) has only a single reactor vessel. The pressure tube, which is a pressure-retaining component, has a 103.4 mm inside diameter ${\times}$ 4.19 mm wall thickness, and is 6.36 m long, made of a zirconium alloy (Zr-2.5 wt% Nb). This provides support for the fuel while transporting the $D_2O$ heat-transfer fluid. The simple tubular geometry invites highly automated inspection, and good approach for all inspection. Similar to all nuclear heat-transfer pressure boundaries, the PHWR pressure tube requires a rigorous, periodic inspection to assess the reactor integrity in accordance with the Korea Nuclear Safety Committee law. Volumetric-based nondestructive evaluation (NDE) techniques utilizing ultrasonic and eddy current testing have been adopted for use in the periodic inspection of the fuel channel. The eddy current testing, as a supplemental NDE method to ultrasonic testing, is used to confirm the flaws primarily detected through ultrasonic testing, however, eddy current testing offers a significant advantage in that its ability to detect surface flaws is superior to that of ultrasonic testing. In this paper, effectiveness of flaw detection and the depth sizing capability by eddy current testing for the inside surface of a pressure tube, will be introduced. As a result of this examination, the ET technique is found to be useful only as a detection technique for defects because it can detect fine defects on the surface with high resolution. However, the ET technique is not recommended for use as a depth sizing method because it has a large degree of error for depth sizing.

• Journal of Korean Society of Transportation
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• v.32 no.3
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• pp.266-279
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• 2014

For the evaluation of roadway safety, diverse methods, including before-after studies, simple comparison using historic traffic accident data, methods based on experts' opinion or literature, have been applied. Especially, many research efforts have developed traffic accident prediction models in order to identify critical elements causing accidents and evaluate the level of safety. A traffic accident prediction model must secure predictability and transferability. By acquiring the predictability, the model can increase the accuracy in predicting the frequency of accidents qualitatively and quantitatively. By guaranteeing the transferability, the model can be used for other locations with acceptable accuracy. To this end, traffic accident prediction models using non-linear regression, artificial neural network, and structural equation were developed in this study. The predictability and transferability of three models were compared using a model development data set collected from 90 signalized intersections and a model validation data set from other 33 signalized intersections based on mean absolute deviation and mean squared prediction error. As a result of the comparison using the model development data set, the artificial neural network showed the highest predictability. However, the non-linear regression model was found out to be most appropriate in the comparison using the model validation data set. Conclusively, the artificial neural network has a strong ability in representing the relationship between the frequency of traffic accidents and traffic and road design elements. However, the predictability of the artificial neural network significantly decreased when the artificial neural network was applied to a new data which was not used in the model developing.

• Development and Reproduction
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• v.14 no.4
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• pp.281-286
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• 2010

Recent evidence has revealed that the intratesticular injection of hypertonic saline(20%) resulted in a chemically castrated state such as nadir testosterone levels in rats. To confirm the efficacy of this simple saline-injection method further, we investigated the changes in the gross and microscopic anatomy of testis. Our study comprised three groups; intact(control) group, orchidectomy group and saline-injection (experimental) group. Single dose of hypertonic saline (sterilized, $750{\mu}{\ell}/testis$) were directly administered into both testis of adult rats (about 300 g BW). Bilateral orchidectomy was performed at the same day of saline injection. Following 30 days post-injection, reproductive tissues were surgically removed, weighed and fixed for histological examination. The body weights were not changed in both orchidectomy group and saline-injection group when compared to those in intact group. The wet weights of testis were significantly decreased in saline-injection group when compared to those in intact group. The wet weights of epididymis and seminal vesicle and prostate were significantly decreased in orchidectomy group and saline-injection group when compared to those in intact group. Macroscopically, the testes exerted slight atrophy and the tunica albuginea seemed to be intact in saline injection group. Histologically, however, larger parts of testicular tissue underwent necrosis and were barely recognizable after hematoxylin-eosin staining. In the same section, only the opposite part of the injection site was stained showing abnormal state of cell layers mostly fibrosis and infiltrated leukocytes. Sloughing of immature germ cells from the basement membrane along with shedding cells in the intraluminal space was notable in most seminiferous tubules from the saline injected testis. The present study confirmed that the direct injection of hypertonic saline into testis can induce a castration-like, testosterone-depriving effects on accessory sex organs. Our findings suggest that the efficacy of this less expensive and minimally invasive method seems to be almost even with that of conventional orchidectomy and chemical castration, though more in-depth evaluation should be supported.

• The Journal of Korean Society for Radiation Therapy
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• v.28 no.2
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• pp.109-121
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• 2016

To verify the accuracy of the image guided radiotherapy using ExacTrac 6D couch, the error values in six directions are randomly assigned and corrected and then the corrected values were compared with CBCT image to check the accurateness of ExacTrac. The therapy coordination values in the Rando head Phantom were moved in the directions of X, Y and Z as the translation group and they were moved in the directions of pitch, roll and yaw as the rotation group. The corrected values were moved in 6 directions with the combined and mutual reactions. The Z corrected value ranges from 1mm to 23mm. In the analysis of errors between CBCT image of the phantom which is corrected with therapy coordinate and 3D/3D matching error value, the rotation group showed higher error value than the translation group. In the distribution of dose for the error value of the therapy coordinate corrected with CBCT, the restricted value of dosage for the normal organs in two groups meet the prescription dose. In terms of PHI and PCI values which are the dose homogeneity of the cancerous tissue, the rotation group showed a little higher in the low dose distribution range. This study is designed to verify the accuracy of ExacTrac 6D couch using CBCT. It showed that in terms of the error value in the simple movement, it showed the comparatively accurate correction capability but in the movement when the angle is put in the couch, it showed the inaccurate correction values. So, if the body of the patient is likely to have a lot of changes in the direction of rotation or there is a lot of errors in the pitch, roll and yaw in ExacTrac correction, it is better to conduct the CBCT guided image to correct the therapy coordinate in order to minimize any side effects.

• Journal of Yeungnam Medical Science
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• v.10 no.1
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• pp.190-196
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• 1993

The prognosis of chronic hepatitis C is very variable. In some, the disease is progressive and cirrhosis can develop from chronic hepatitis C. Hepatitis C virus(HCV) may act as a trigger towards hepatocellular carcinoma in patients with cirrhosis. Interferon has been used for the treatment of chronic hepatitis C in abroad, 16 patients with chronic C liver disease were treated with ${\alpha}$-interferon (alfa-2b; "Intron A" Schering Corp. Kenilworth. NJ). All patients were given ${\alpha}$-interferon in subcutaneous doses of 3 million units three times weekly for 1 to 9 months. During therapy, CBC and ALT levels were checked weakly to monthly. After therapy, patients were followed for 1 to 8 months. Among 16 patients treated with ${\alpha}$-interferon, progressive decrease of ALT levels was observed in 14(87.5%). In 11 patients(68.8%), ALT levels fell into the normal range during therapy, and in 9 of 11, within one month after therapy, 6 months after the completion of therapy in 4 of 9 patients(44.4%) whose ALT levels were in the normal range, ${\alpha}$-interferon seems to have effect in controlling disease activity in patients with chronic hepatitis C. But the changes in the usage of ${\alpha}$-interferon, dose and duration, long term follow up and more convenient and simple tests for HCV detection are recommended for the better effect and the exact evaluation on the effect of ${\alpha}$-interferon therapy in patients with chronic hepatitis C.

• Journal of Korean Society of Environmental Engineers
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• v.31 no.11
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• pp.947-956
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• 2009

Residual petroleum hydrocarbons after an oil spill may accumulate in the marine benthic ecosystem due to their high hydrophobicity. A lot of monitoring data are required for the estimation of ecosystem exposure to residual petrochemicals in an ecological risk assessment in the affected region. To save time and cost, the environmental exposure to them in the affected ecosystem can also be assessed using a simple food-web bioaccumulation model. In this study, we evaluated residual concentrations of four selected polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (phenanthrene, anthracene, pyrene, and benzo[a]pyrene) in a hypothetic benthic ecosystem composed of six species under two exposure scenarios. Body-residue concentration ranged 5~250 mg/kg body depending on trophic positions in an extreme scenario in which the aqueous concentrations of PAHs were assumed to be one-tenth of their aqueous solubility. In addition, bioconcentration factors (BCFs) and bioaccumulation factors (BAFs) were evaluated for model species. The logarithm of bioconcentration factor (log BCF) linearly increased with increasing the logarithm of 1-octanol-water partition coefficient (log $K_{OW}$) until log $K_{OW}$ of 7.0, followed by a gradual decrease with further increase in log $K_{OW}$ without metabolic degradation. Biomagnification became significant when log $K_{OW}$ of a pollutant exceeded 5.0 in the model ecosystem, indicating that investigation of food-web structure should be critical to predict biomagnifications in the affected ecosystem because log $K_{OW}$ values of many petrochemicals are higher than 5.0. Although further research is required for better site-specific evaluation of exposure, the model simulation can be used to estimate the level of the ecosystem exposure to residual oil contaminants at the screening level.

• Clinical and Experimental Pediatrics
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• v.45 no.3
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• pp.339-345
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• 2002

Purpose : The purpose of this study was to evaluate the clinical usefulness of chest high-resolution computed tomography(HRCT) in patients with chronic coughs or persistent wheezing with normal chest X-ray finding. Methods : We reviewed the charts, chest X-rays, and HRCT findings of patients with chronic coughs or persistent wheezing of less than 2 years of age. The records were sourced from the Department of Pediatrics, Inha University Hospital covering the period from July, 1999 to June, 2000. Chronic cough was defined as a cough which was prolonged for more than 3 weeks. Results : The sample consisted of 24 patients(male 15 and female 9, mean age $4.7{\pm}3.8$ months old). Among them, 16 patients showed normal findings(66.7%) and 8 patients showed abnormal (33.3%) in simple chest X-rays. Among 16 patients who had the normal chest X-rays, 13 patients showed abnormal chest HRCT findings(81.3%) such as air space consolidation of the dependent portion(62.5%), bronchiolitis obliterans(12.5%), and bronchopulmonary dysplasia(6.3%). Conclusion : We suggest that the chest HRCT is a useful diagnostic tool in the evaluation of patients with chronic cough or persistent wheezing with normal chest X-ray, especially below 2 years of age.

• The Journal of Korean Society for Radiation Therapy
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• v.24 no.1
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• pp.31-37
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• 2012

Purpose: This study evaluated the usefulness of Helmet bolus device using Bolx-II, paraffin wax, solid thermoplastic material in total scalp irradiation. Materials and Methods: Using Rando phantom, we applied Bolx-II (Action Products, USA), paraffin wax (Densply, USA), solid thermoplastic material (Med-Tec, USA) on the whole scalp to make helmet bolus device. Computed tomography (GE, Ultra Light Speed16) images were acquired at 5 mm thickness. Then, we set up the optimum treatment plan and analyzed the variation in density of each bolus (Philips, Pinnacle). To evaluate the dose distribution, Dose-homogeneity index (DHI, $D_{90}/D_{10}$) and Conformity index (CI, $V_{95}/TV$) of Clinical Target Volume (CTV) using Dose-Volume Histogram (DVH) and $V_{20}$, $V_{30}$ of normal brain tissues. we assessed the efficiency of production process by measuring total time taken to produce. Thermoluminescent dosimeters (TLD) were used to verify the accuracy. Results: Density variation value of Bolx-II, paraffin wax, solid thermoplastic material turned out to be $0.952{\pm}0.13g/cm^3$, $0.842{\pm}0.17g/cm^3$, $0.908{\pm}0.24g/cm^3$, respectively. The DHI and CI of each helmet bolus device which used Bolx-II, paraffin wax, solid thermoplastic material were 0.89, 0.85, 0.77 and 0.86, 0.78, 0.74, respectively. The result of Bolx-II was the best. $V_{20}$ and $V_{30}$ of brain tissues were 11.50%, 10.80%, 10.07% and 7.62%, 7.40%, 7.31%, respectively. It took 30, 120, 90 minutes to produce. The measured TLD results were within ${\pm}7%$ of the planned values. Conclusion: The application of helmet bolus which used Bolx-II during total scalp irradiation not only improves homogeneity and conformity of Clinical Target Volume but also takes short time and the production method is simple. Thus, the helmet bolus which used Bolx-II is considered to be useful for the clinical trials.

• Journal of Intelligence and Information Systems
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• v.17 no.4
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• pp.279-292
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• 2011

Movie is a representative media that can transmit stories to audiences. Basically, a story is described by characters in the movie. Different from other simple videos, movies deploy narrative structures for explaining various conflicts or collaborations between characters. These narrative structures consist of 3 main acts, which are beginning, middle, and ending. The beginning act includes 1) introduction to main characters and backgrounds, and 2) conflicts implication and clues for incidents. The middle act describes the events developed by both inside and outside factors and the story dramatic tension heighten. Finally, in the end act, the events are developed are resolved, and the topic of story and message of writer are transmitted. When story information is extracted from movie, it is needed to consider that it has different weights by narrative structure. Namely, when some information is extracted, it has a different influence to story deployment depending on where it locates at the beginning, middle and end acts. The beginning act is the part that exposes to audiences for story set-up various information such as setting of characters and depiction of backgrounds. And thus, it is necessary to extract much kind information from the beginning act in order to abstract a movie or retrieve character information. Thereby, this paper proposes a novel method for extracting the beginning boundaries. It is the method that detects a boundary scene between the beginning act and middle using the accumulation graph of characters. The beginning act consists of the scenes that introduce important characters, imply the conflict relationship between them, and suggest clues to resolve troubles. First, a scene that the new important characters don't appear any more should be detected in order to extract a scene completed the introduction of them. The important characters mean the major and minor characters, which can be dealt as important characters since they lead story progression. Extra should be excluded in order to extract a scene completed the introduction of important characters in the accumulation graph of characters. Extra means the characters that appear only several scenes. Second, the inflection point is detected in the accumulation graph of characters. It is the point that the increasing line changes to horizontal line. Namely, when the slope of line keeps zero during long scenes, starting point of this line with zero slope becomes the inflection point. Inflection point will be detected in the accumulation graph of characters without extra. Third, several scenes are considered as additional story progression such as conflicts implication and clues suggestion. Actually, movie story can arrive at a scene located between beginning act and middle when additional several scenes are elapsed after the introduction of important characters. We will decide the ratio of additional scenes for total scenes by experiment in order to detect this scene. The ratio of additional scenes is gained as 7.67% by experiment. It is the story inflection point to change from beginning to middle act when this ratio is added to the inflection point of graph. Our proposed method consists of these three steps. We selected 10 movies for experiment and evaluation. These movies consisted of various genres. By measuring the accuracy of boundary detection experiment, we have shown that the proposed method is more efficient.

• Tuberculosis and Respiratory Diseases
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• v.49 no.1
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• pp.82-92
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• 2000

Background : In chronic airway disease, mucus secretion is increased, but extraction of mucin, which is the main component of mucus secretion, is a very complicated and limited in clinical use. Recently, monoclonal antibody for mucin was developed for possible clinical use. In this study, cellular analysis and quantification of respiratory mucin in sputum of patients with chronic airway diseases were performed. Method : Sputum was collected from patients with asthma(n=33), bronchiectasis(n=8) or chronic bronchitis (n=13) by spontaneous expectoration or by hypertonic saline induction. Collected sputums was treated by 0.1% dithiotreitol to dissociate the disulfide bond of the mucus and filtered through a nylon gauze. Total cell count, viability and differential count were measured. For detection of mucin, collected samples were treated with sodium dodecyl sulfate polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis and then with monoclonal antibody(HMO2), as the primary antibody, and PAS stain. The amount of mucin was measured with ELISA by HMO2. Correlation with clinical information, cellular analysis, and amount of measured mucin were analyzed. Results : Total cell counts of sputum were significantly increased in patients with bronchiectasis but viability remained the same. Eosinophils were significantly increased in patients with asthma, neutrophils in bronchiectasis chronic bronchitis, respectively (p<0.05). The results of Western blotting and PAS staining confirmed the presence of glycoproteins and matched? with mucin. The amounts of mucin measured by ELISA were not significantly different among the disease groups. Significant correlation was identified between the amount of mucin and viability(r=-0.482, p<0.05). Conclusion : Inflammatory cells in the sputum of those with chronic airway disease were different for each disease type. Measurement of mucin by ELISA via monoclonal antibodies may be a simple method for the evaluation of chronic airway disease.